Many of the beaches of the world have been despoiled in recent years by oil spills. Oil tankers wrecked at sea and discharge of bilge water by ships at sea have accounted for large quantities of oil which has eventually washed onto beaches. Not only have such beaches suffered a considerable aesthetic loss, but also marine life and water fowl in the vicinity of the beaches have been eradicated. As a result, considerable efforts by many parties have been devoted to developing various means not only to prevent oil from contacting such beaches, but also to clean such beaches after they have been contacted by oil. Such efforts have to date been very expensive and only modestly successful.
One of the more usual methods of protecting beaches is through the use of straw. The straw is spread at the waters edge in order to catch incoming oil slicks. Once the straw has been soaked with oil it must be immediately retrieved or it will sink, making retrieval difficult. At best, the straw is highly inefficient and much oil passes through it and soaks into the beach sand. The oil soaked sand must then be picked up and taken to waste disposal and fresh clean sand deposited in its place. As evident, the use of straw alone is not entirely satisfactory for several reasons.
The present invention overcomes the above described difficulties and provides a successful solution to the problems of the prior art, as will be apparent from the following description thereof.